Re: Hebrew, etc. [was: Multi-lingos

On Tue, 22 Aug 2000 19:38:09 +0200 BP Jonsson <bpj@...> writes:
> BTW, Steg, doesn't Ashkenaz mean "North"?  Nowadays "Det större
> Norden" is
> often used to include the Baltic countries or to point out that one
> includes Iceland and the Faroes.
-

Ashkenaz was originally (like Sefarad and Tzorfat) the name of a city,
city-state, or region somewhere in the Levant area north of Israel.  Over
the years, the diasporan Jewish communities began to refer to their new
lands with these names of diasporan communities mentioned in later
Biblical books. (Kena`an is an exception)

The Rhine Valley, Franco-Germany area became Ashkenaz.
Spain (originally Ispamya, cf. España/Hispania) became Sefarad.
Provence, Southern France became Tzorfat.
Eastern Europe became Kena`an (Canaan).

But eventually the name Ashkenaz absorbed all of Northern and Eastern
Europe, and Tzorfat absorbed all of France.


> In Lucus America is called Al-Maghreb-al-Akbar "The Greater West" in
> Arabic
> -- since it was Tarik, who Here conquered Spain who discovered the
> New
> World There.  What would be the Hebrew counterpart of that?
> /BP 8^)>
-

Unlike Arabic, Hebrew doesn't have a comparative pattern for words,
instead using the word _be-yoteir_ which can be translated as an adverb,
"morely".
So literally "The Greater West" would be something like Ha-Ma`arav
ha-Gadol be-Yoteir, which actually comes out "the Greatest West" because
of the definite article.  But i'd expect that it'd just be translated as
Ha-Ma`arav ha-Gadol "the Great West", implying that there's also
Ha-Ma`arav ha-Qattan "the Smaller West" out there somewhere.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "verbing weirds language."  ~  calvin (& hobbes)